I've been getting a bit extensive in my cooking, and frankly I think I need a bit of a break. So this week? Simplicity.
We went to the Slow Food Des Moines Fall potluck / contest. My Chocolate Chunk Pumpkin Bread got third in the pie / dessert category, now this is not as impressive as it sounds as there were not that many more then 3 items available for voting in the category, but I still got a bag of prizes, which was nice. The best thing about going to something like this, as opposed to say, a work potluck, is that the food will almost always be very good. So many things to try, so much made from scratch. Good Things.
A couple of weeks back, the lid to one of my saucepans gave up the ghost and the handle would no longer be connected to the lid. This is kind of frustrating since looking for a replacement lid has led to many dead ends. I suppose I should get the actual measurements and try some more, but I am annoyed.
I liked how this turned out. It was tasty, a little spicy a good use of the sausage and the harissa. Though it wasn't a paste, per say, so I had to guess how much should be in there. Even so, it turned out well.
I needed to figure out what to do with this, and this sounded like something we would like. It made for a good dinner. It was a nice to use both the squash in the risotto and to move the taste up in the broth. Though this was what I complained about having to use so many dishes, it did seem a bit obnoxious.
Skipped. We went to a movie instead.
I had some pumpkin puree left, a couple of spicy peppers and in they went. Good things.
I had to use regular buns, it made me sad. Though with my vendor working 2 other jobs, again, it only makes sense. They still turned out really well.
Forgot the sweet potato, so the contents were a little lacking. The flavor overall was ok, but not one of my best.
Delayed!
Used some leftover things, some new things and a quick meal ensues.
Good as always. I was so late getting home that this was the only reasonable course to take. I had planned on making my own hummus, but the food processor was needed for another purpose. So I ran to the store to pick some up. Then home to make this for dinner, then made some pumpkin bread, while I slowly ate my own dinner, when I was able.
Quick and good, with the sudden realization that we need to pick up more syrup from Great River Maple, they should be at the market next week.
So this is a complicated dish to execute. It is made a whole lot easier to make when you have a kitchen helper. So Nathan made the bechamel while I made the pumpkin and sausage mix. In this I usually get distracted as to what is going on, so I don't get to pay as close to timing as I should. But clearly the recipe needs an update to adjust for both the amount of content in the dish (overflowed and made the house a bit (maybe more then a bit) smokey) and the timing. The thickening of the bechamel took quite a bit longer then my own recipe states and so did the pumpkin and sausage mix. So in that, It would clearly make it more difficult to get the timing about right. Anyways, other then the smokey room, it turned out pretty well. Enjoyed by most. It did make me happy to know, when I mentioned that it was being made, more then one person attempted to invite themselves over :-D
put to many in the pan, took a long time to make, but still pretty good.
Forgot to add the roasted peppers, but instead of the paltry 6 cheeses that some people make their mac and cheese special. 7 Cheeses. Anyways the cheese section is pretty clear.
There was lamb, I bought lamb, I made lamb burgers, no green chile.
I pureed a whole bunch of peppers and reheated the chicken in them. Good things.
Delayed!
This past Friday, I had the opportunity to join Keith on a trip to Iowa City to see John Hodgman on his Vacationland Tour at the Englert Theater. It was fun. I don't get a lot of time one on one with Keith, so this was kind of nice. I really enjoyed the show, laughed quite a bit a the stories and the way they were presented. What has been sticking with me the most is the cover of So Much Wine by The Handsome Family by John Hodgman. The performance of it and the words really have been rolling back and forth in my head. It looks like it was even covered by Andrew Bird. This reminds me that I'm behind on albums from Andrew Bird and a new artist to overwhelm myself with. I took one picture before the show started, which was almost immediately liked by the performer himself (kinda cool, right?).
On a side note, I am starting to worry about where I am getting the turkey this year.
So I inspected what is in the freezer to see what is left in there. So I have a bunch of ham skin and ham bone with the intention of making a ham stock, a rabbit, and after that it gets fairly random. I have entirely to many frozen roasted peppers. And I have some (duck) stock I need to use.
Great start to sweet potato season. This was very good, however if I were to redo it, I'd probably swap out to have chicken thighs and build a fond with them in the pan first, and then add the meat back at the end. I think this would add a bit more chicken flavor. Over all, good stuffs.
Other then not making enough pancakes (basically just enough for us, with no leftovers), I really like this recipe. We used some Kalona Supernatural Buttermilk, which has quite a dissimilar taste then the buttermilk we generally buy. The Maple Sausage was from Crooked Gap and was good as always.
Having today!
I had with Kimchi, Shannon without (with a small sampler with). I liked it.
Baked, pretty good. made a mayo-Sambal Olek dip for it. Turned out ok.
So the issue with buying ground beef directly from the source, is that you can never be quite sure of the fat content of the beef. You can make guesses based on the breed of cow, and the general diet of the cow, but that only gets so far. So I've been added a bit of fat (usually rendered from bacon) to burgers to get the fat content level up a bit. It really does make the burger taste quite good, but you have to have a gentle hand when doing this. I think I got it about right. But of course I didn't actually measure it, so that wasn't super helpful.
This came to me while I was walking through the market. I actually went back to the Cheese Shop's stand to pick up some mozzarella. I used what was left of the sourdough from Joseph's Wild Yeast Bakery, some tomatoes from Cleverley Farms. Good stuffs for using up some leftovers. Made for a good quick dinner.
Delayed until today.
Roasted the chopped pork loin with the potatoes, with some spices that I can't remember what they are now (but felt right at the time). Turned out pretty good.
Quick, delicious, nom nom.
